Records Tumble at Prescott

Last weekend saw a stunning event at Prescott with lots of action on the track, a host of records reset and unfortunately quite a lot of carbon crunched.

Prescott was in a fine condition for it’s final Championship event of 2014.

Two very competitive British Hillclimb Championship Top 12 Run Offs saw the hill record blitzed each time and two different winners in two very different racing cars.

Continuing his very strong season in the Ian Dayson & Ray Rowan developed Force WH, which briefly featured a modified rear wing assembly this weekend, Midlander Will Hall took the Outright Hill Record below 36 seconds in the opening shoot-out to snatch the win away from Trevor Willis. OMS 28 driver Willis, who had trimmed the record himself just one minute earlier, followed Hall home ahead of 2014 Champion elect Scott Moran, Tommy New who set a PB in the big Gould-Judd, and young charger Alex Summers. One notable absentee from the Run Off results was Jos Goodyear who had dropped the blown GWR Raptor through Orchard in qualifying, to the detriment of the wee cars front left corner.

If anyone watching was in doubt of Goodyear’s immense level of commitment in the cockpit, then they were proved wrong in Q2. Having bolted a new front corner and wing onto the car Jos rolled to the start line, checked the car while warming the tyres, and blasted his way to top qualifying spot while resetting Alex Summers’ 2013 class record in the process!

The top 5 on the Championship points table topped the timesheets in the second points-paying Run Off. Willis was attacking as always, but his now standard Scandinavian-flick approach to the Pardon Hairpin wasn’t enough to hustle the OMS higher than fifth place. Unfortunately for Willis, who is locked in battle with Will Hall for runner-up spot in the Championship, he was pipped by Summers and the DJ Firehawk, so lost further ground on Hall who claimed another podium spot with third place. This left the battle for the win, which was fought out between Moran Jnr and spectacular Goodyear. Scott ran first and pulled out a note perfect run in the NME V8-engined Gould to drop under the old record with 36.03s. Goodyear then rolled the tiny Raptor to the line, engaged the launch control and blasted into Orchard Bend at 102mph. Neat, tidy and amazingly quick, the little car darted through the Esses and towards the finish. The crowd gasped as Jos stopped the clocks on 35.51s to demolish Hall’s earlier record and claim 11 points.

As so often happens on a hot & dry weekend, there were lots of incidents and accidents on Sunday afternoon as the pressure was ramped up in the class runs, fortunately without serious injury to anyone involved, although there may be a few sore wallets this week!

So, with the penultimate round of the series taking place at Doune in a couple of weeks, Scott Moran is now virtually assured of his fifth British Hillclimb Championship title. There is a massive battle raging behind him though as form men Hall (Third place) and Goodyear (fifth place) chase down their rivals Willis (second place) and Summers (fourth place). With 44 points available, there is everything to play for…